Entangled Media Ecologies: The Nexus of Education and Mass Communication from the Perspective of UNESCO (1945-1989)

in Flury, Carmen; Geiss, Michael (Eds.) How Computers Entered the Classroom (1960-2000): Historical Perspectives (in press)

Numerous studies and handbooks in the history of education are devoted to the history of educational media and the evolution of educational technologies. This chapter puts an explicit focus on the ... [more ▼]

Numerous studies and handbooks in the history of education are devoted to the history of educational media and the evolution of educational technologies. This chapter puts an explicit focus on the implications and conceptual background of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization´s (UNESCO) technology-driven idea of education, which already took shape before the 1957 Sputnik shock. Eager to establish strong bonds between mass communication and education, UNESCO by the late 1940s had already begun to set up a powerful internal apparatus for media policy which soon closely collaborated with its Education Division. From the late 1970s, UNESCO set out to establish a New World Information and Communication Order to further stabilize its global role in education and media policies. This chapter posits that textbooks, radio, TV, film, and computers were serving as interconnected elements of UNESCO’s educational mission. By looking at these specific technological ecologies of education, I connect research into the history of education with research into UNESCO´s media policies. This conceptual history approach demonstrates that education is not only based on ethical norms, teaching, and learning but is also connected to technological properties that offer access to knowledge and its acquisition. In addition, and when studying UNESCO, it becomes evident that the organization´s education-technology-nexus is also very much connected with the media and publishing industries. [less ▲]

Zur Transformation ökologischer Beziehungen: Manifest für Bildungsgeschichte nach COVID-19

in Pädagogische Rundschau (in press)

Dieser Beitrag richtet sich auf die Fotografie als aktive Intervention innerhalb einer geschädigten oder gefährdeten Umwelt und bedient sich dieses Mediums, um neue Perspektiven der Bildungsgeschichte – ... [more ▼]

Dieser Beitrag richtet sich auf die Fotografie als aktive Intervention innerhalb einer geschädigten oder gefährdeten Umwelt und bedient sich dieses Mediums, um neue Perspektiven der Bildungsgeschichte – in Bezug auf die bereits geschriebene und die zukünftige – zu entwickeln. Diese Perspektiven werden besonders deutlich, wenn sie vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger Debatten zu Fragen der planetarischen Verantwortung und einer geteilten Welt entwickelt werden, die auch unsere Vorstellungen von Erziehung und Bildung prägen. Der Beitrag schlägt vor, dass sich die Forschung von einer anthropozentrischen Weltsicht, sowohl in positiver als auch in negativ verstandener Weise, innerhalb der historischen Bildungsforschung verabschiedet. Dies impliziert kritische Distanz zu jenen Konzepten, die die Souveränität und Freiheit des Menschen in den Mittelpunkt rücken, ferner Distanz zu Ideen der Modernisierung und zu ökonomischem Wachstum als Norm, Distanz gegenüber Fortschrittsdenken, starken Nationalstaaten und dem Glauben an eine effiziente Steuerung von Bildungssystemen, deren ökologische Konsequenzen insgesamt negiert wurden und werden. Entsprechend wird argumentiert, dass anthropozentrische Ansätze der Bildungsgeschichte die Offenheit und Vulnerabilität des menschlichen Körpers sowie dessen ethische, kulturelle und soziale Nähe zu anderen Lebewesen sowie zur materiellen Welt vernachlässigt haben. [less ▲]

Emerging ecologies and changing relations: a brief manifesto for histories of education after COVID-19

in Paedagogica Historica (2022)

he paper draws upon photography as an active intervention into compromised environments and uses it to discover and develop new perspectives on past and future histories of education after COVID-19. These ... [more ▼]

he paper draws upon photography as an active intervention into compromised environments and uses it to discover and develop new perspectives on past and future histories of education after COVID-19. These perspectives become particularly clear when seen against the backdrop of recent discussions on planetary responsibility and shared ecologies. The paper suggests that we shift our research agendas away from anthropocentric world views that have placed great emphasis on human sovereignty, modernisation, progress and/or decline, nation states and global governance, and the stratifying effects of education systems, without reflecting their ecological consequences. It argues that anthropocentric approaches to history of education have neglected the openness and vulnerability of the human body and its ethical, cultural and social proximity to other living creatures and the material world. The paper therefore focuses on what it means for historians of education to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, what it means to change research perspectives, and what it means to look at photographs that were produced in a state of exception. The paper sets out to propose a manifesto for a post-anthropocentric research agenda that anchors history of education and the history of pandemics in intertwined ecologies of the living and material worlds. The paper suggests that future histories of education cannot be written without considering the COVID-19 crisis as both a challenge and an encouragement to further develop our understanding of education. [less ▲]

Kulturgeschichte, Mentalitätsgeschichte, Psychohistorie, Historische Anthropologie

in Kluchert, Gerhard; Horn, Klaus-Peter; Groppe, Carola (Eds.) et al Historische Bildungsforschung. Konzepte, Methoden, Forschungsfelder (2021)

Media Technologies for a Better World: UNESCO’s Ethical Framework for Communication Infrastructures and Uses of Media after the Second World War

in Atanasiu, Vlad; Chachereau, Nicolas; Enrico, Natale (Eds.) et al Framing Communication Infrastructures (1950-2020): Discours et imaginaires – Diskurse und Vorstellungen (2021)

The paper looks at a global, non-commercial organization that not only steered worldwide innovation in communication infrastructure but also made efforts to define ethical standards for media use and mass ... [more ▼]

The paper looks at a global, non-commercial organization that not only steered worldwide innovation in communication infrastructure but also made efforts to define ethical standards for media use and mass communication. Established after the Second World War, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ran campaigns in the late 1940s to remove information barriers and foster the free flow of information throughout the world. Against a backdrop of emerging conflicts between East and West, North and South, UNESCO promoted the free and global spread of ideas “by word and image,” by developing its press, broadcasting and film services, advocating for the improvement of technological infrastructures (e.g. the worldwide allocation of high frequencies), helping to remove economic obstacles to global trade in news and other media (e.g. by advocating for tariff reductions on educational, scientific and cultural materials), and renegotiating telephone regulations. While critics accused UNESCO of using its media policies to promote Western values and ideas during the Cold War, UNESCO saw its role in the context of the fight for human rights, especially the right to freedom of information and the right to education. UNESCO thus mobilized mass communication policies in the service of what the organization defined as an egalitarian vision that was intended to become a major wellspring of innovation. [less ▲]

Media Matter: Introduction

in Comas Rubí, Francisca; Priem, Karin; González Gómez, Sara (Eds.) Media Matter: Images as Presenters, Mediators, and Means of Observation (2021)

Lauenstein im Bild. Über das Edieren von Geschichte und Erinnerung in historischen Alben

in Werner, Meike (Ed.) Ein Gipfel für Morgen. Kontroversen 1917/18 um die Neuordnung Deutschlands auf Burg Lauenstein (2021)

Making History Together: Public Participation in Museums

Scientific Conference (2020, December 15)

The international online symposium brought together scholars, museum professionals and heritage practitioners to discuss how participatory history is constructed, developed, and implemented in museums ... [more ▼]

The international online symposium brought together scholars, museum professionals and heritage practitioners to discuss how participatory history is constructed, developed, and implemented in museums. 'Making History Together: Public Participation in Museums' took place on 15 December 2020 and has brought together participants and case studies from all over the world. Sessions include discussions on co-creation and co-production, community of interpretation, digital public participatory practices, empowerment, and overall impact on making history in museums. [less ▲]

Images of Industrial Life and Vocational Training: Scouting as a Liminal Space for Educating a Workers’ Elite in 1920s Luxembourg

in History of Education (2019)

This paper looks at a specific set of corporate images, namely photographs of apprentices of the Luxembourg steel conglomerate ARBED, and analyzes how young workers are depicted in these images. The paper ... [more ▼]

This paper looks at a specific set of corporate images, namely photographs of apprentices of the Luxembourg steel conglomerate ARBED, and analyzes how young workers are depicted in these images. The paper draws on a collection of 2,251 glass plate negatives (re)presenting ARBED’s industrial cosmos, including its vocational school the Institut Emile Metz. The roughly 160 images of apprentices contained in the collection put on display the apprentices’ bodies and a variety of activities in different contexts. The images’ contents testify to the institute’s programmatic hybridity and the constant (re-)mix of formal and semi-formal learning activities intended to educate natural, urban, mobile and communal men and future workers. Our focus is on Boy Scouts activities in a variety of different environments, which have functioned as a liminal space for educating a workers’ elite, mitigating the risks of industrialization and fostering social harmony and cultural belonging. [less ▲]

David Seymour’s Album on the Fight Against Illiteracy in Calabria as a Tool of Mediatization: Material Traces of Editing and Visual Storytelling

in Hendel, Giovanna; Naggar, Carole; Priem, Karin (Eds.) They Did not Stop at Eboli: The UNESCO Campaign Against Illiteracy in Reportages by David Seymour and Carlo Levi (1950) (2019)